Ancestry.com intends to launch a DNA testing program to their site by the end of the summer, all for $200 and decrease in personal privacy for your entire family gene pool. Ancestry.com has 24,000 genealogical databases, meaning that your cheek-swab test would be available to anyone with access to their site. Sorenson Genomics is partnering with Ancestry.com on this project.

At first glance, this is a cool use of modern technology. However, what happens when that parent who gave up their child for adoption, suddenly has the child showing up on their door saying, “hey we’re related.” Or how about the relative who doesn’t want anything to do with their family, suddenly having long lost relatives inviting them the the annual family barbeque?

In the coming months, Ancestry.com will release technology that captures DNA test results in an ever-expanding, searchable database. Using this database, users can easily identify distant cousins and tap into thousands of hours of already-completed genetic genealogical research, breaking through family tree dead-ends or barriers such as missing or inaccurate records and name changes. Ancestry.com is also developing technology that will allow users to integrate DNA results with the historical documents already in their online family trees.

The cool factor to joining in on the DNA testing is to be able to track where your gene pool has been over the past few thousand years. Still, is it worth it to give up your DNA for a twenty minute coolness factor?

While you may not have thought about this, there are very large privacy and confidentiality issues here. What happens when an insurance company gets a hold of these results and then denies your claims, or even insurance, because you have a possible genetic, pre-existing condition? You might not even have your DNA on file with Ancestry.com, but your sister, brother, mother, father, cousin, etc., might and their results could still tell a lot about you even though you’ve taken the precaution to not have your DNA in their database.

What is going to happen when you find out that your mother lied and your brother isn’t really your brother or, even worse, that your father isn’t your father? You just know that someone is going to sue over something as stupid as this and it’s going to cause a lot more turmoil than there needs to be.

We also honestly don’t know if places, such as the FBI, can access to this database. The FBI already has thousands of criminals in their own database. It’s only a simple step from there, to match other “potential” criminals via ancestry.com. Technically, all the FBI needs is a warrant listing you as a “person of interest” and they have your DNA. You’ve already cooperated by allowing your DNA to become public on a public website.

It is not so unimaginable to see that, in the near future, we will have babies DNA tested at birth, with their sample placed into a federal database, available for access under whatever newly contrived laws of the day happen to be.

There is also the question of those who don’t care about legalities and what they will do with your information. All they need is your name, then, on ancestry.com, they can get your DNA, your mother’s maiden name, etc. etc. It’s a boon for those who practice the fine art of stealing other people’s identities. Hell, with just a little bit of work, they can copy your DNA, then look online, get all your information, and, voila!, they are now you.

Whether or not you want to participate in the new DNA database, you should take into account that not only your DNA will be available, your entire family’s DNA will be linked in there via you. Giving up your DNA should be done with extreme caution, paying for it seems ludicrous, but we’ll have to wait and see how many people hop on the train and actually pay for this service, not giving a thought to the privacy ramifications that this invokes.